The opening scene begins with a stark extreme close up of a woman’s face in black and white. The

The color red symbolics all of the colors and how each can have numerous emotions coming

Hitchcock makes use of a number of techniques in Vertigo and brings them together to make a film that is considered to be one of his greatest masterpieces. Through the use of colour, lighting, camera movement, dialogue and characterisation, Hitchcock produces a film that fascinates and intrigues us.

We can observe the selection of blue color symbolizing melancholy in these scenes. Also, during the film, another color scene, this time yellow, can be seen, reflecting madness, insecurity, and obsessive by these scenes in the jury and streets. The catastrophic events, scenography and audio incremented the tension of every scene and complemented the facial expressions in the characters, creating a circle of the dramatic tension in the movie.

In this essay I have chosen to analyse two key scenes, each from two of Hitchcock’s most critically acclaimed films, ‘The Birds’ (1963) and ‘Psycho’ (1960). Both of these scenes from both films display the female protagonists at their most vulnerable, facing the threat and fear of death.

"It's difficult to describe the way…the twisting of the… it's too difficult to describe" When describing some scenes in the film, he uses hand movements to show "twisting". This makes us eager to see what happens. When Alfred Hitchcock reaches some parts of the set, he makes some faces and talks differently. This makes the audience infer that something important or something significant has happened there.

To see what they see, and compare our own thoughts with the evolution of the characters and the story. The dexterity of the images, and the impact that each scene has in portraying this theme, guide the viewer throughout the film with little use of dialogue and action. Our central character “Jeff,” is struggling with his casted imprisonment, his need for adventure is apparent as he watches outside his window. Conflicted with his girlfriend and conflicted with his theories, his character becomes more palpable, we begin to realize what is going on not only on the outside of him, but the inside of him as well. The aspects of the outside courtyard and the visual isolation of each apartment, help depict the humanity of each individual and sympathy for even the darkest characters. Hitchcock uses his camera, just as our protagonist does, to focus with him. The camera angles are depicted in a way to which we react with the character, rather than at the character, and eventually expose the minor elements of the story that bring to fruition the suspense of the movie and the thrills of discovery.

This film is a black and white film and the lighting is more towards dim effect which terrified the audience. Music plays the biggest effect in the film. Bernard Hermann’s theme is used for this film because it uses mostly high-pitched string instrument notes so the suspense and horror mood can be formed to the audience.

Colour is a symbolic material in various sections of the film, as it functions as connecting visual and thematic threads which allude to connotations of danger, love, passion shaping her as a dynamic, charismatic character. Lola's fiery red hair highlights her speed, as she nearly runs through the entire movie. There are scenes where Lola and Manni are together and are seemingly illuminating red light, which exhibits their love and passion. The colour red is symbolically used in the film to emphasize certain aspects of Lola's life that are maintained in the use of props. In the beginning, the call to Lola is answered on a red phone, which highlights the urgency of Manni’s call and sets the precedence for the symbolic use of red throughout the movie. The recurring motif of the red ambulance at the end of each run represents urgency and tension. The red accents the rushed plotline, the love between Lola and Manni, and the blood of them both.

Lastly, Francis’ mind contains an example of “boxes within boxes” because in his mind he sees Dr. Caligari as the mentally unstable one, but in reality, it is him who is unstable. Furthermore, Francis’ mind is a box that is enclosed in delirium, which is enclosed in another box, which is the actual reality. Mise-en-scène can be seen when both Dr. Caligari and Francis are both confined to a straitjacket and placed in a cell at different times in the film. Another example of mise-en-scène is the movements Dr. Caligari

A thriller is a type of film that usually instills excitement and suspense into the audience. A thriller is commonly described as a tense edge of the seat environment. The movie, Vertigo, is one of the most famous thrillers ever made. However, Vertigo does not fit into the stereotypical genre of thriller. Vertigo, often viewed as an experimental film because it was one of the first major thrillers of that time that used many different and innovative camera techniques. These techniques used in this film are different types of lighting, montage, intense music, etc. Vertigo is known to be one of Hitchcock’s best movies because of his unique sense of style and his famous

Hitchcock explained the reason for filming a woman wearing only her under garments in the opening sequence of Psycho: "Audiences are changing....The straightforward kissing scene would be looked down at by the younger viewers....Nowadays you have to show them as they themselves behave" (Hitchcock 1). The director was keenly aware of how audiences responded to his films (Rebello 163) and sought to maintain their interest. He was among a handful of Hollywood filmmakers who deliberately sought out innovative composers (Nowell-Smith 258); for Psycho, Hitchcock hired Bernard Hermann who wrote a modern score which challenged the norm. The title itself, fifties and sixties slang for the violently psychotic, suggested the imminence of a new generation (Brill 200).

Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller ‘Rear Window’ (Hitchcock, 1954) begins with the immediate use of mise-en-scène in order to establish a sense of atmosphere, equilibrium and the mundane, soon to be disrupted as the events of the film unfold and are observed through the eyes of the voyeuristic protagonist, Jeff. Setting, cinematography and various other expressive mise-en-scène techniques work together to influence the overall appearance of the film. Though, by taking a closer look, these techniques reveal the significance of the narrative and characters. In the opening sequence, Hitchcock’s original visual style provides signposts for the audience to recognize what will be significant in the future: instead of establishing what is only happening in the moment in time; mise-en-scène is used to suggest what is to come. This arrangement of the “Classical Hollywood” narrative - starting with the setting and characters in a state equilibrium - acts as a seemingly all-purpose, archetypal opening by establishing location and introducing character. Simultaneously we can see that this sequence is vastly different from the rest of the film: it is leading the viewer into a false sense of security – the calm before the storm – as Jeff soon happens to piece together information leading to the possibility that one of his neighbors murdered their wife. This sequence is one of the only moments in the film we see things the protagonist does not, thus this carefully constructed opening is preparing

In the short story, “A Red Dress 1946” by Alice Munro, Color imagery is used for signifying a girls point of view of her world and her own self by using the color red which represents nonconformity. The narrator has only a slight interest in being red, but she really wants to be blue, just like everyone else. Munro writes, “When I was asked a question in class, any simple little question at all…that I had blood on my skirt”.(2) The narrator is just so nervous about being red she is thinking of bad things that can happen with the color red. She is thinking of all the bad times the color red could do a girl badly, just like a girls period could leak at any moment. In “A Red Dress 1946”, a short story by Alice Munro, she uses Color Imagery to show the significance of the narrator’s view of the color red and all the “Evil” about it.

The scene begins with Kat Dennings character 'Renee Yohe' laying on the ground after taking drugs. A high shot has been used to capture this moment as it usually represents vulnerability, therefore causing the audience to sympathise with Renee, and the position that she is in because she's powerless. This angle also enables us to view the mise-en-scene, which is extremely dreary as the colour scheme used consists of grey and black. These colours have been used as they have connotations of being seriously dull and depressing, thus reflecting the characters emotions and causing the audience have a further understanding of Renee and what sort of personality she has. Still in the same shot we hear the diegetic sound of a butterfly flapping its wings, it flies past Yohe who glances at it emotionlessly. Although this is a very small action, the butterfly holds great symbolism as its reminiscent of her childhood, because at the start of the film we are shown how Renee liked to draw bright coloured butterflies, the directors and producers of the movie

Hitchcock’s technical devices used in his films were very well known, for the fact that the devices he used like, his Hitchcockian opening, was able to draw the viewer in to the world of what was Hitchcock’s movies. Going more in depth of what was a “Hitchcockian” opening is very simple. In Hitchcock’s movies the opening either had one or more of these 4 criteria: tone and setting, it had either a skyline and/or headline, camera shots through public and private spaces, and landscape of crowd caricatures. For Rebecca there are 3 criteria that is meet and that is tone and setting, camera shots through public and private spaces, and the use of a skyline/headline. Starting with tone and setting, Hitchcock would always have the opposite vs the opposite, meaning if his movie was suspenseful (most of the time it was) then the opening would